What Does Acts 16:19 Mean in the King James?
And when her masters saw that the hope of their gains was gone, they caught Paul and Silas, and drew them into the marketplace unto the rulers,
The analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
THE KEY
The masters’ lost profit is named before their public case, exposing economic injury as the force behind their seizure of Paul and Silas.
THE MEANING
When another person’s freedom interrupts income, those who profit from their control can answer with force and bring that force before public authority. Here, the masters’ expected gains vanish, and they seize Paul and Silas and drag them into the marketplace before the rulers.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie that an appeal to public order is automatically about justice; the verse identifies lost income as the trigger for the masters’ attack.
THE ROOT
ἐργασία
ergasia
GROWS FROM
ἐργ-
erg-
work, activity, what is done
Here “gains” is ἐργασία, work or business, and Acts 19:25 uses the same noun for the craft tied to wealth. The word joins the masters’ hope to a revenue-producing operation, exposing the economic engine behind their violence.
ALSO GROWS
ergon: work, deed
ἔργον
The same stem names the work or deed itself, keeping the masters’ claim grounded in an economic operation.
ergazomai: work, do, carry out
ἐργάζομαι
This verb names the activity that generates a return; the verse exposes the business behind the word “gains.”
εἷλκυσαν
heilkysan
GROWS FROM
ἑλκ-
helk-
to pull, draw, drag
“drew them” in this verse is heilkysan. English “drew” can sound like guidance, but this Greek verb also means to drag, as when the rich haul people into court in James 2:6. The masters have already seized Paul and Silas, so here the word carries the force of pulling them into public view.
ALSO GROWS
helkysē: draw
ἑλκύσῃ
John 6:44 uses the same verb for the Father drawing a person toward Jesus; the agent and context shape how the pull is experienced.
helkousin: drag
ἕλκουσιν
James 2:6 uses it for rich people dragging the poor before judgment seats, echoing the coercive movement into public authority here.
THE PATTERN
When power depends on income from others, threatened profit can recruit public authority and force.
And there came in two men, children of Belial, and sat before him: and the men of Belial witnessed against him, even against Naboth, in the presence of the people, saying, Naboth did blaspheme God and the king. Then they carried him forth out of the city, and stoned him with stones, that he died.The heads thereof judge for reward, and the priests thereof teach for hire, and the prophets thereof divine for money: yet will they lean upon the LORD, and say, Is not the LORD among us? none evil can come upon us.Whom he called together with the workmen of like occupation, and said, Sirs, ye know that by this craft we have our wealth.THE THREAD
But ye have despised the poor. Do not rich men oppress you, and draw you before the judgment seats?James uses the same Greek verb behind “drew” for rich people dragging the poor before judgment seats. The shared word exposes the coercion in this verse: lost profit is followed by bodies being pulled into public authority’s reach.
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